The official blog of the Campaign for the American Reader, an independent initiative to encourage more readers to read more books.

Monday, February 27, 2006

Would Orwell and Marx have blogged?

There's a lengthy article over at the Financial Times about the promise (over-hyped) and peril (over-hyped) of blogs.

The article is too long for me to actually recommend, but I thought it was worth sharing the answers of a few prominent bloggers to the query: Would "Karl Marx or George Orwell, two enormously potent political writers who were also journalists, ... have blogged if the medium had been available to them?"

“We’re sure Marx and Orwell would have blogged,” said Heather and Jessica of gofugyourself.com. “When it comes right down to it, blogs reach the greatest amount of people in the least amount of time, and they reach the very people Marx and Orwell wanted to speak to most.”

“Orwell, definitely,” said Instapundit’s Glenn Reynolds. “Marx would have had to acquire a bit more ‘snap’, I’m afraid, to have made it as a blogger.”

“Orwell maybe,” said [the original Wonkette, Ana Marie] Cox. “Orwell was pathologically productive. He never doubted himself, that’s for sure. And maybe he shares that trait with many bloggers.”